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Thoughts inspired by Mr Nipper's Nipper

I commend a short article by Mr Stephen Nipper of "Rethink (IP)" entitled "Changes are coming ......". Before commenting further on his post, I should explain that in the argot of the part of England where I grew up "nipper" means child. The article starts with a delightful anecdote of a request by one of Mr Nipper's children to skip the commercials in a live television broadcast. The post also displays a charming photo of the child. I have a lot of sympathy for the little boy. My recollection of American telly from my days as a graduate student in Los Angeles is that commercials can go on for quite a long time. I was told that the reason for a lot of irritating breaks at American football and basketball matches was that the broadcasters needed time to run their advertisements. I think that is why I have never been able to take to American sports even though my university won the student basketball championship several years in a row and was second only to another local university in the regional American football competition when I was there.Mr Nipper reflects on all the changes to IP practice that have taken place in the USA since his first child was born. He says that that child was born 7 years ago - just one year after I opened NIPC in Manchester. It reminded me of all the changes that have taken place here too. Many are the same as those that Mr Nipper mentions in his post. But we have also had some of our own such as public access to the Bar, the exclusion of civil legal aid for business disputes requiring, the Civil Procedure Rules, increasing competition in our market from the rest of Europe as a result of Council Regulation 44/2001 - to mention just a few. We can expect even more change when the Department of Constitutional Affairs publishes its promised white paper this autumn.One thing that Mr Nipper says that is undoubtedly true:“Most of these changes weren't driven by attorneys wanting to earn more money. It's hard to argue that simplifying things, ease of use and speed are synonymous with billing by the hour. They aren't. Instead, these changes were driven by the public, by entrepreneurs and by access to technology.”He says he is “thankful to be involved with this great rethinking of the practice of IP law.” The members of these chambers, Ekundayo Cole-Wilson, Alex Khan, Richard Aird and I certainly are.

This was an appeal by the National Guild of Removers & Storers ("NGRS") against an award of £1,275 damages in its favour by District Judge Vary for passing off. By dismissing that appeal, His Honour Judge Hacon seems to have settled a 7 year controversy as to what should be the correct measure of damages for what is often an inadvertent misrepresentation of continued membership of the NGRS by a removal or storage business that no longer wishes to remain a member of that guild.

In Caspian Pizza Ltd and Others v Shah and Another [2015] EWHC 3567 (IPEC) (9 Dec 2015) Judge Hacon dismissed a claim for trade mark infringement and passing off. The trade marks relied upon were the device mark that appears above and the word mark CASPIAN. The judge declared the word mark invalid because the defendants had run a restaurant called "CASPIAN" in another part of the country which constituted an "earlier right" within the meaning of s.5 (4) of the Trade Marks Act 1994. However, he did not declare the device mark invalid on the ground that the defendants had no goodwill in the running chef logo. I blogged about the case in Caspian Pizza Ltd and Others v Shah and Anotheron 24 Jan 2016.

The claimants appealed to the Court of Appeal against the invalidation of the word mark on the grou…